Automatic broiler temperature measuring by thermal camera

Heat stress of broilers in commercial broiler-houses decreases their productivity and thus farm profitability. Climate control systems use sensors measuring the temperature around the broilers, which can be different from the actual body temperature of the broilers. In this research, a method estimating the body temperature of an individual broiler was designed and validated for commercial broiler-houses. The method is based on a low-cost IR camera calibrated in real time. The algorithm for the IR image processing uses lasso regression prediction model. A prototype using this method was built and tested in a research broiler-house over 21 days (age 14–35 days) for 15 broilers. The predicted body temperature was compared with the actual body temperature measured by temperature loggers implanted in the abdominal cavity. The accuracy was ±0.27 °C measuring one broiler every 16 min on average. In an experiment in a commercial broiler house, a discrepancy between the climate control activation and broiler estimated body temperature was shown.